2025 Renée Wrapped: Celebrating Growth, Giving Back, and Trans Joy
Dec 18, 2025
When I look back at 2025, I see a year that exceeded every expectation I had for my gender-affirming voice teaching practice. This was the year I finally made the leap to YouTube long-form content, expanded my public speaking work, increased my community giving, and experienced profound joy in both my professional and personal life.
As a transgender voice coach who's been teaching voice feminization and masculinization for years, I know that transparency matters. So I'm pulling back the curtain to share what worked, what I'm proud of, and where this journey is heading in 2026.
YouTube: The Long-Form Content Breakthrough
After almost four years of creating short-form content on TikTok and Reels, my editor Tea and I finally made the jump to long-form YouTube videos in 2025. This decision transformed how I could deliver trans voice training content to the community.
The Numbers Tell a Story
The growth exceeded anything I anticipated:
48 videos published throughout the year—nearly one per week when you account for breaks and planning time. Each video required research, scripting, filming, editing, and optimization, making this a significant undertaking for our small team of two.
Over 20,000 new subscribers joined the channel, creating a community of people actively engaged in voice feminization training, voice masculinization work, and nonbinary voice exploration.
More than one million views across all videos. This metric matters because it represents one million moments when someone sought out information about changing their voice and found affirming, expert guidance.
The Most Popular Videos
The top three videos by every metric were:
- You ALREADY Have What It Takes to Change Your Voice (Let Me Prove It!) resonated because it challenged the common belief that voice change requires inherent talent or specific anatomy.
- Deep Feminine Voices 201: A Guide for Trans Voice Training filled a gap in MTF voice training resources by addressing the complexity of achieving low, dark feminine voices.
- How to Sound More Androgynous | Nonbinary Voice Guide became essential viewing for gender-diverse folks seeking voices that exist outside the binary.
You Already Have What It Takes to Change Your Voice (Let Me Prove It!)
How to Achieve a Deep, Low, Dark Feminine Voice: A Complete Guide
How to Sound More Androgynous: A Complete Nonbinary Voice Guide
The Videos I'm Most Proud Of
While popularity metrics matter for reach, the videos I'm most proud of creating pushed the field forward in specific ways:
- You're Using Voice Tools Wrong finally let me air my grievances with this popular app and help people use it in an affirming and positive way.
- Why Your Voice "Flips" (And How to Control It) explained head voice and chest voice. I was scared to make this one because people are very opinionated about this subject, but I think we struck a good balance.
- Your Resonance Breakthrough: Spectrogram Basics for Trans Voice Training made advanced acoustic analysis accessible to everyday voice students.
Perhaps most meaningful: I regularly receive emails and comments from educators using my videos in their own teaching practices and university classrooms. Knowing that my trans voice lessons are becoming part of formal education affirms that this work has lasting impact.
(Also, five people told me I look like Weird Al Yankovic, which I'm choosing to take as a compliment.)
You’re Using Voice Tools Wrong
What Are Vocal Registers? Chest Voice vs Head Voice in Trans Voice Training
Your Resonance Breakthrough: Spectrogram Basics for Trans Voice Training
Guest Collaborations and Educational Impact
I hosted nine guests on the channel throughout the year, discussing everything from voice surgeries to public speaking to singing on testosterone. These conversations expanded beyond my own expertise to showcase the breadth of knowledge in the gender-affirming voice field.
I plan to bring in more guests onto the channel in 2026 so if you have any recommendations, please contact me.
Black, Autistic, and Teaching Trans Voice with Shaynah
Singing on Testosterone: What Trans Singers Need to Know (Interview with Eli Conley)
Voice Feminization Surgery, Explained (with Tallulah Breslin)
Public Speaking and Community Education
Public speaking, panels, and workshops became a much bigger part of my work in 2025. This expansion allowed me to meet more educators in both the trans voice space and broader trans health fields than ever before.
Podcast Appearances
I was a guest speaker on nine podcasts this year, including nonbinary icon Jeffrey Marsh's podcast. These conversations allowed me to reach audiences who might not find me on YouTube or through my courses. You can listen to all my podcast interviews on my interviews page.
Finding Your Authentic Voice: My Conversation with Jeffrey Marsh on Inner Voice
Voice, Identity, and Coming Home to Yourself: My conversation with Amanda Wan on The Layers of Us podcast
Chronic Pain, Joyful Movement, and Running Races: My Fitness Journey with Dibs Fitness
Academic and Professional Speaking
Several speaking opportunities brought my work into academic and professional settings:
I gave a talk on using digital tools in gender-affirming voice teaching for the CREDIT Institute, hosted at Harvard University's Mass Eye and Ear teaching hospital. This opportunity positioned my practical teaching methods alongside cutting-edge research.
I spoke at the University of Victoria's Chair in Transgender History Conference: Moving Trans Histories Forward, contributing to the scholarly conversation about trans experiences and community resilience.
I collaborated with Seattle Voice Lab to give a workshop called Making Noise: Improvisation as a Tool for Gender-Affirming Voice, exploring playful approaches to voice work that reduce anxiety and increase experimentation.
Panel Discussions and Conference Presentations
I participated in a Voice and Speech Trainer's Association panel on gender-affirming voice, connecting with speech pathologists and voice coaches from theatre and performance backgrounds.
Most significantly, I developed a new talk called Sounding Like Ourselves: Trans Voice Work as Resistance and Self-Care and presented it at both the Charlene Arcila Trans Wellness Collective's conference and the inaugural PlumeCon.
This talk reframes voice training not just as skill-building, but as political resistance against biological essentialism and as an essential form of self-care for trans and gender-diverse people.
Looking Ahead
2025 was the first year I really focused on public speaking, and it's something I hope to expand significantly in 2026. I created a new speaking page on my website specifically for this purpose.
If your organization, university, conference, or community group wants to bring in a transgender voice coach who can speak about voice training, trans joy, or resistance through self-expression, please reach out!
Giving Back to Indigenous Communities and Students
I have so many opportunities this year, which is why I was delighted to be able to redistribute some of my resources to communities and individuals who need support.
Indigenous Community Support
This year, I donated $1,020 to Wabano Indigenous Centre for Excellence in Healthcare Services. Wabano is dedicated to a world in which all First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people have achieved full and equitable access to the conditions of health, including pride in ancestry, cultural reclamation, peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable environment, resources, and social justice.
Since my business and home are based on unceded Indigenous land, giving back to Indigenous people isn't optional but an ethical imperative. I'm anticipating being able to increase this amount in 2026 as the business continues growing.
Course Scholarships
I gave approximately 100 scholarships throughout 2025. This includes free and subsidized access to any of my courses: Mindful Voice Feminization, Masculinize Your Voice Without Testosterone, Mix & Match: Designing Your Nonbinary Voice, and my teacher training program.
Mindful Voice Feminization
Mix & Match! Designing Your Nonbinary Voice
Masculinize Your Voice Without Testosterone
Voice feminization training and other forms of voice work shouldn't be accessible only to people with financial privilege. While I need to maintain business sustainability, I'm committed to ensuring that anyone who needs these resources can access them.
If you're interested in exploring feminine voice training but cost is a barrier, sign up for my free one-hour masterclass: Change The Gender of Your Voice: No Hormones or Surgeries Required. This masterclass introduces the foundational concepts that make voice change possible for everyone.
And you can also sign up to receive a scholarship yourself by clicking here.
Personal Life and Finding Balance
In addition to professional growth, 2025 brought profound joy in my personal life. Some highlights:
I visited five countries this year, including my fifth-ever live-abroad trip. I spent six weeks in Sweden, which allowed me to slow down and experience life at a different pace while still running my business remotely.
I ran my first 10K race and started a small running Instagram to document that journey. Physical challenges became a way to process stress and celebrate what my body can do.
I completed my first Tour de l'Île de Montréal, a 50-kilometre bike tour around the island. It was extremely difficult and absolutely worth it.
I became an unkie for the first time, which brought new understanding of what it means to support the next generation, as well as forced me to finally choose what to be called, since we don't have a good nonbinary option for aunt/uncle in English.
My life partner and I celebrated one year together, deepening a relationship that brings stability and joy to everything else I do. The picture above is us during the festival of lights in Uppsala, Sweden.
Holding Joy Alongside Difficulty
The vibes were very good in my life this year, which sometimes felt strange to hold alongside all the pain visible in the world. But I've come to believe that sustaining the fight for a better world requires believing that life can be beautiful.
This isn't about toxic positivity or ignoring injustice. For me, it's important to recognize that joy, rest, and pleasure are forms of resistance. They're what allow us to keep showing up for the work that matters.
Looking Forward to 2026
Looking back at 2025, I see a year where I expanded capacity while maintaining the core values that drive this work: accessibility, community care, pedagogical innovation, and trans joy.
The growth in YouTube subscribers and views matters because it represents people finding affirming resources. The speaking engagements matter because they bring gender-affirming voice work into academic and professional spaces where it can influence systemic change. The scholarships and donations matter because they redistribute resources toward those who need them most.
And the personal joy matters because it sustains everything else.
What This Means for You
Whether you're just discovering trans voice training or you've been following my work for years, thank you for your attention, kindness, curiosity, and willingness to go with me on this journey.
We're working together to make the world a more joyful place for trans people—not someday in the future, but right now, in each moment when someone discovers they have the power to change their voice and express themselves authentically.
Here's to another year of growth, community, resistance, and joy in 2026.
Ready to start your own voice journey? Join my free masterclass, Change The Gender of Your Voice: No Hormones or Surgeries Required, and learn the fundamentals of gender-affirming voice training from an experienced transgender voice coach.
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